Breathing Under Water: Healing Happens in the Open

   

John 20:19–23

 

Last week, we talked about Step Four in the 12 steps that undergird so many recovery communities:

 

“We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”

 

And we noted that Step Four is not about making an inventory of our spouse, our parents, our children, our boss, our church, our political enemies, or the people who have disappointed us.

 

The work of Step Four is the willingness to look honestly at ourselves.

 

Where am I afraid?
Where am I defended?
Where have I caused harm?
Where have I been hiding from what is true?

 

That is holy work. But it is not the end of the work.

 

Truth that stays only inside of us tends to get distorted by fear, shame, or self-justification. But when it is spoken in a safe, trusted relationship, it can be held in reality, in the light of day—where it can be gently tested, clarified, and received with compassion instead of isolation.

 

That is where Step Five takes us:

 

“We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”

 

Not a vague admission.
Not a general, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”
Not a quick, “Mistakes were made.”

 

The exact nature of our wrongs.

 

I hope that phrase gets our attention. It gets mine.

 

Most of us can admit imperfection in general much more easily than we can name harm in particular.

 

It is one thing to say, “I have not always been loving.”

It is another thing to say, “I used my anger to control the room.”

 

It is one thing to say, “I get anxious.”

It is another thing to say, “I made my anxiety everyone else’s emergency.”

 

Step Five moves us from generalities to truth.

 

Truth then spoken to God.
To ourselves.
And to another human being.

 

And here for us today the language of recovery meets the language of faith: what Step Five calls “wrongs,” the church has often called sin. That last part—the part about engaging another person in our admission of wrongdoing, of sin—needs attention.

 

When I speak of sin, I mean those things that separate us from God—from the love, truth, and wholeness God desires for us. Sin does not only live in the private space between my soul and God. Sin wounds relationships. Sin distorts communities. Sin moves through households, churches, workplaces, neighborhoods, systems, and histories.

 

So healing cannot remain purely private.

 

Fr. Richard Rohr says that somewhere along the way, the church lost the idea of a healing and forgiving community. Confession became vertical (gesture) and private, something between the individual and God, or between the individual and one religious authority.

 

But Jesus seems to have imagined something more communal.

 

In John 20, the disciples are hiding behind locked doors.

 

The first resurrection community is not gathered in strength. They are afraid. The doors are locked.

And Jesus arrives and stands among them.

He does not wait for them to become brave or to explain how they failed him. He comes into the locked room and says, “Peace be with you.”

 

Then he shows them his wounds. The risen Christ does not hide his wounds from the community.

 

And then he breathes on them.

“Receive the Holy Spirit.”

And then he gives to them this astonishing work of forgiveness.

 

Not only to Peter. Not only to one leader. Not only to a priestly class.

He gives this work to a gathered, frightened, wounded community—a community that has itself needed grace.

That is the community Jesus trusts with forgiveness.

 

We practice a small version of this almost every time we worship.

We confess together.

Not because every person in the room has done the same thing, or because a printed prayer can name every exact wrong, or because public confession replaces the deeper work of telling the truth to God, to ourselves, and to another trusted human being.

 

But because we are learning, together, not to hide.

 

We stand before God as a community and say, “There is harm in us. There is fear in us. There is sin in us. There are things we have done and things we have left undone.”

 

And then, after we hear the good news of forgiveness, we turn toward one another and pass the peace.

 

That moment is not just a friendly greeting or churchy intermission. At its best, it is a visible sign of the forgiven community Jesus creates: people who have confessed together, received mercy together, and are learning to live in the peace Christ breathes into the room to share with others.

 

The church—the gathered community that is Christ’s body in the world—is not meant to be a place where everyone pretends to be fine.

 

The church is meant to be a place where frightened people receive peace, wounded people receive breath, and forgiven people learn how to become a forgiving community.

 

That is beautiful and dangerous, because relationships have power.

 

Rohr says the power of relationship can allow a great deal of healing in a short time, and a great deal of damage if we do not sit compassionately in the place of mercy with another.

 

If someone trusts us with truth, we are standing on holy ground.

 

We do not get to become curious in a gossipy way, superior, or careless. We do not get to weaponize the truth later, rush them through shame, or offer cheap forgiveness that bypasses harm.

 

We are called to sit compassionately in the place of mercy.

 

That does not mean there are no consequences, or that harm is ignored, or that repair is unnecessary, or that the person who was wounded has to be rushed into reconciliation.

 

That would not be grace. That would be spiritual bypassing.

 

The kind of confession Step Five invites is closer to restorative justice than to religious bookkeeping. It asks more than, “What rule was broken?” It asks: Who was harmed? What truth must be told? What responsibility must be taken? What repair is possible? What kind of community can hold both accountability and grace?

 

That is much closer to the gospel than pretending the wrong thing just disappears because someone said a prayer in private. The truth matters. The harm matters. The person harmed matters. The person who caused harm also matters. And the community matters, because so often the hurt happened in relationship and healing must also happen in relationship.

 

This is where I want to return to the title of the series: Breathing Under Water.

 

The poem that inspired Rohr’s book title begins with a strong house built by a strong sea. At first, the sea is a neighbor—present, powerful, but kept at a distance by a fence of sand.

 

I think many of us build our spiritual lives like that: near the truth, but not quite in it. We are willing to be acquainted with honesty, willing to admit in general that we need grace, willing to stand at a respectful distance from what might actually change us.

 

But then the sea comes.

 

The truth of our situation crosses the sand. The water reaches the door. And at some point, the invitation is not to run away from the water or pretend we can keep the sea—the truth—politely outside.

 

The invitation is to learn to breathe underwater, to coexist with the truth.

 

That is what confession can feel like: the truth no longer content to stay at a distance, the strong house we built to keep ourselves safe no longer the same thing as freedom.

 

Step Five asks us to let the truth cross the threshold.

 

To say it to God.
To say it to ourselves.
To say it to another human being who can hold it with mercy and courage.

 

Not because we love humiliation. Not because we want to drown in shame. But because the water that feels like threat may also become the place where we learn a new way to breathe.

 

That is hard. It is also holy.

 

Scripture tells the truth about human failure without pretending the harm did not happen—and still insists that God remains faithful. God’s covenant loyalty is deeper than our wandering, which is what makes confession possible. We do not confess into emptiness or contempt. We confess before the God who already knows us and remains faithful.

 

We confess as people who have been breathed on by the risen Christ. We confess as people who have heard, “Peace be with you,” spoken into locked rooms.

 

And then, with appropriate trust and boundaries, we practice telling the truth to another human being.

 

Not everybody is safe for that kind of truth. That is real and true.

 

Step Five does not ask us to hand our deepest confession to someone who will use it to harm us. It does not ask us to confuse vulnerability with recklessness. It does not ask us to tell everything to everyone.

 

It asks us to tell the truth to another human being.

 

A sponsor. A counselor. A pastor. A spiritual director. A wise friend.

 

Someone who can sit compassionately in the place of mercy. Someone who can say, when needed, “Yes, that caused harm.” And also, “No, you are not beyond grace.”

 

We need mercy that does not minimize harm, accountability that does not erase belovedness, truth without cruelty, and grace without avoidance.

 

That is what the risen Christ breathes into the church: a community where peace is not pretending, forgiveness is not cosmetic, confession is not humiliation, and truth can become the beginning of healing.

 

Each week I have tried to offer an invitation.

 

Not an easy invitation.

 

But simple.

And this week’s invitation is this:

Tell the truth somewhere safe.

Name one thing exactly.

Not the whole tangled story, maybe. Not every wound, every pattern, every failure, every fear. Just one honest thing.

God, this is what I have done.
God, this is what I have avoided.
God, this is what I keep excusing.
God, this is what I need to say aloud.

 

And then, when the time is right, let another human being hold that truth with you.

 

By “when the time is right,” I do not mean when you feel completely unafraid, or when you can control exactly how the other person will respond.

 

The time may be right when the truth has become clear enough that hiding it is keeping you stuck, when shame has made the room inside you too small, or when you can name one honest thing without using it to punish yourself or manipulate someone else.

 

And the person may be right when they are safe, wise, compassionate, and boundaried; someone who can hold truth without gossip, who can speak words of grace without minimizing harm, and who can hold us accountable without cruelty.

 

Step Five does not ask us to tell everything to everyone.

It asks us to stop carrying the truth alone.

 

Because some shame only loosens when it is spoken in the felt presence of grace. Some patterns only become clear when another person helps us see. Some wounds only begin to heal when the locked room is opened and the breath of Christ moves through.

 

The good news is this:

Jesus comes into locked rooms. Jesus speaks peace to frightened people. Jesus shows his wounds. Jesus breathes the Spirit into communities that have failed and are still being called. And Jesus entrusts us with the work of forgiveness.

 

Not as a weapon. Not as a performance. Not as a transaction.

As a way of life.

A way of breathing underwater.

 

So may we become the kind of community where truth can be told. May we sit gently in the place of mercy. May we take responsibility for the harm we have caused.

 

And may our passing of the peace become more than habit—practice for the life Jesus gives us: confessing honestly, receiving grace, and turning toward one another with peace.

 

May we receive the breath of Christ in our locked rooms.

And may we discover that what is spoken in grace does not drown us.

It teaches us how to breathe.

 

God, meet us where we are,
and lead us toward wholeness.

 

Amen.